Guest profiles: Enabling personalized marketing & guest experiences

Understanding your guests shouldn’t feel like solving a puzzle. Yet, many hoteliers find themselves attempting to piece together guest insights from fragmented systems and disjointed data.

The result? Missed opportunities to elevate marketing, loyalty programs, and guest experience. Not to mention inefficient use of your team’s time, leading to unnecessary frustrations. Without cohesive guest insights, it becomes nearly impossible to create meaningful, personalized interactions today’s travelers have come to expect.

That’s where guest profiles come in. A robust guest profile directly improves both operational efficiency and guest satisfaction by granting you a 360-degree view of your guests.

This article highlights the importance of guest profiles, including key components and the impact of consolidating and utilizing guest data to boost revenue and exceed guest expectations.

Ensure you have systems in place ahead of time to collect guest information, including your property management system (PMS), customer relationship management (CRM) system, and point-of-sale system.

Each of these should integrate with your hotel guest profiles, pulling information from various sources to provide a snapshot of your guest preferences and behaviors. 

8 key components of guest profiles

Guest profiles must be easily accessible and provide all of the necessary information to support your front desk, marketing, guest experience, and revenue management teams. 

They are especially important for hotel groups and should consolidate guest records across properties so that no matter which location a guest stays, all properties can view information for remarketing and loyalty efforts. 

Below we’ve identified important guest profile components as well as how each component influences your property. 

Stay history

Identify repeat guests to help tailor your loyalty offers. For instance, welcome returning guests with a complimentary room upgrade or send a remarketing campaign with a discounted stay at another property in your portfolio. 

Spending habits 

Track your guests’ spending habits, such as frequent spa visits, to identify areas for future promotions and note preferred amenities.

Booking source 

Document the source profile of your guests, whether they booked via an OTA, a travel agent, or your direct booking site. This insight supports future marketing efforts. For example, if a guest booked through an OTA, send a post-stay offer encouraging them to book direct next time, with added perks, like a free or discounted meal at your restaurant.

Marketing and communication preferences 

Ensure you communicate with your guests via their preferred channels (i.e. text, email, WhatsApp), while staying compliant with privacy regulations. You can use this information to send booking confirmations, upsell opportunities, and in-stay messages.

Payment information

Storing secure payment details and credit card information facilitates seamless payment experiences and streamlines check-in/out processes.

For groups and corporate clients, company profiles are essential for managing payment methods and room preferences, enhancing service quality and operational efficiency.

Contact information

Tracking your guests’ contact details, such as their phone number or email, as well as their preferred contact methods, enables timely, personalized communications throughout the guest journey. This includes email marketing initiatives or satisfaction surveys.

Personalization

Guest profiles include personalized tags to indicate special requests or statuses. For example, if you know a guest is on a business trip, you can let them know about your coworking space,  or if a couple is on their anniversary, you can arrange a special surprise in their room upon arrival. 

Notes

This captures unique preferences your guests may have shared during their stay with you, like requests for a room on a higher floor. These serve as helpful insights to enhance your guests’ next visit.

How technology enables detailed profiles 

Managing guest data across multiple systems and properties can be overwhelming, but guest profiles and hospitality technology help bridge this gap, enabling you to collect, integrate, and leverage guest data effectively.

Below, we break down how your guest data is collected using existing technology, helping you build guest profiles and make data-driven decisions.

1. Data collection

Here’s how each software in your tech stack collects information about guests and helps you manage profiles effectively:

• PMS – serves as your primary data hub for collecting and storing essential guest information, including their booking history and accommodation preferences.
• POS system – captures guest spending patterns and works alongside your restaurant, gift shop, or wellness software to manage and track customer purchases.
• CRM system – stores engagement from past and present marketing campaigns and guest feedback.
• Guest engagement platforms – manages guest communications, contact information, and preferences,

2. Data integration

When these systems are tightly integrated, data flows into your PMS and then into guest profiles, where it is consolidated and stored for loyalty, marketing, and guest experience initiatives.

3. Unified guest data

With a unified data set, your property can use this information to:

• Conduct loyalty campaigns to attract repeat guests 

• Craft personalized marketing campaigns targeting specific guest segments.
• Drive revenue with personalized upselling and promotions.
• Streamline operational efficiency with guest room assignments and housekeeping preferences.

With advancements in AI, hoteliers’ abilities to predict guest needs and behaviors will continue to grow. For instance, if a repeat guest historically prefers late check-outs, hotel intelligence can preemptively offer this service based on the guest’s past behaviors. With Cloudbeds Intelligence, for example, segments and their optimal promotions will be automatically suggested for direct marketing campaigns. 

The impact of robust guest profiles

Guest profiles transform the way you interact with your guests and have a significant impact on marketing strategies, guest experience, and revenue generation. 

Personalized marketing activities

Targeted email campaigns: Reach guests with offers aligned to their preferences. 

Special occasion promos: Leverage data on anniversaries or birthdays to automate celebratory offers, such as discounted stays or complimentary amenities.

Re-engagement strategies: If a guest hasn’t stayed with you in a while, invite them back with personalized incentives, like a free round of golf for a previously enthusiastic guest.

Enhanced guest experience

Room customization: Tailor your accommodations and occupancy for specific needs. For instance, providing two queen beds and a cot for a family of five or reserving quiet spaces for business travellers.

Tailored welcome gifts: Surprise and delight your guests with thoughtful gestures, like a bottle of champagne for guests celebrating their anniversary.

Proactive service recovery: Address prior guest issues before they arise again. Review notes from a guest’s profile to manage their preferences and behaviors and offer a complimentary upgrade upon arrival.

Increased revenue

Upselling opportunities:  For guests with reservations at your hotel restaurant, suggest a relevant upsell, such as trying the tasting menu at your award-winning restaurant.

Optimizing room rates: Leverage guest profiles to understand your property’s patterns in guest stays during peak times for certain segments. For example, optimize your room pricing during Memorial Day to match accommodation demand from high-value guests.

Loyalty: Reward frequent guests with loyalty programs and member perks, such as exclusive lounge access or discounted stays at your other locations.

Guest profiles: The foundation for memorable experiences

Guest profiles are no longer optional—they’re essential and will continue to remain vital as the hospitality industry evolves towards hyper-personalized hotel experiences.

By consolidating and leveraging guest data, you create personalized, efficient guest experiences and position your property for long-term success. This investment not only strengthens guest relationships but also empowers your team to deliver exceptional service.

With the right technology and strategies, you can transform every piece of guest data into an opportunity to delight, retain, and grow your customer base, building a reputation for excellence that sets your property apart in an increasingly competitive market.